Decorating 101: Making a Dorm Room Home
For parents getting
ready to send their kids off to college, memories
of dorms probably consist of tiny, cinder-block rooms
with a set of bunk beds, two desks and maybe some
posters on the wall for decoration. But today’s
dorms have come a long way, and so has the comfort
and style level students expect.
Many schools now have dorms
that are more like condos, with a central communal
living space and separate bedrooms. Students expect
to have all the comforts of home in the dorm as well:
televisions, DVD players, audio systems, computers,
microwaves. And they’ll want to add style and
personality to their dorm rooms as well.
Of course, everything that goes
into a dorm room has to come out at the end of the
school year, so any decorating that students do has
to be easily removable (so no painting the walls a
lovely shade of purple).
And, college students being,
well, college students, all this decorating has to
be accomplished on a tight budget. “Most people
I know are helping to pay for their education, so
there’s not a lot of money left over for all
the stuff we’d like to have for our rooms,”
says Karla Geissler, a senior at the University of
Wisconsin. Here are a few ideas that parents and students
can use to jazz up a dorm room and still have money
left over for pizza.
Furniture
For the most part, furniture
in dorms is standard issue boring. Why not add some
fun to the mix with an inexpensive, colorful chair
from retailers like Ikea or Target? An oversize ottoman
is a good way to add seating capacity to a dorm room.
It can also serve as a table, and some ottomans have
removable tops for added storage room as well.
Accessories
In your own home, accessories
are the little touches that make a big impression.
Carry that idea over to your student’s dorm
room as well. A nice lamp not only serves a practical
purpose, but can add style to a room as well. Even
something as basic as a wastebasket can be funky and
fun. “Accessories are great because they can
make a big change in the room, but they don’t
cost a lot,” says Geissler.
Bedding
Because dorm rooms are small,
beds tend to be the biggest piece of furniture in
the room. Instead of thinking of them as an eyesore,
think of them as a fashion accessory. With the addition
of stylish sheets and a colorful comforter, the bed
can become the focal point of the décor. Choose
accessories in colors that coordinate with the bedding
for a finished look.
Walls
Walls can be the hardest part
of a dorm room to dress up, since you probably won’t
be allowed to paint them. Does that mean your student
is stuck with an “institutional beige”
paint job? No way, says Todd Imholte, president of
Environmental Graphics, a company that specializes
in wall murals that are easy to put up and just as
easy to take down at the end of the year. “Our
Hawaiian Sunset and Manhattan Lights murals are particularly
popular with college students,” he says. The
murals are approximately 8 feet by 13 feet, and can
either be wrapped around a corner or trimmed to fit
the dorm room wall. All it takes to install a mural
are some basic wallcovering tools; the mural comes
with specially formulated paste that makes it easy
to hang, and easy to remove without damaging the wall.
Curtains
Windows offer one more opportunity
to add color to the dorm room. Even if the window
comes equipped with shades or blinds, adding inexpensive
curtains is an easy way to dress up the room.
“Since students don’t
have a ton of money, we have to get creative,”
says Geissler. As many college students have discovered,
that creative touch is what makes a dorm room home.
“It’s great to have a place that you look
forward to coming back to at the end of the day,”
she adds.
